Only party members should vote in primaries

Tuesday's primary election for the 1st Congressional District seat proves the case that Democrats should only be allowed to vote in the Democratic primary and Republicans should only be allowed to vote in the Republican primary, with no crossover voting allowed.

Tuesday's primary election for the 1st Congressional District seat proves the case that Democrats should only be allowed to vote in the Democratic primary and Republicans should only be allowed to vote in the Republican primary, with no crossover voting allowed.

Compare the results of this primary with the U.S. Senate primary in 2010 when former Sen. Jim DeMint was running unopposed on the Republican side. Alvin Greene, a completely unqualified and virtually unknown Democratic candidate ran against former Judge Vic Rawl, who had served four terms in the state legislature. Almost 100,000 votes were cast for Alvin Greene; 60 percent of the vote.

The only plausible explanation is that Republicans did not vote in their Republican primary but crossed over to vote in the Democratic race in order to ensure that an unqualified and unelectable opponent emerge to run against DeMint. That cannot be allowed to happen again.

Mark Sanford's getting more than 35 percent of the Republican primary votes surely points to Democrats crossing over to vote in the Republican primary.